Town off to Liverpool today

Shrewsbury Town continue their pre-season preparations today by heading to Merseyside to take on Liverpool's development squad in a private practice match.

Graham Turner will be taking his first team squad although winger Jon Taylor is a doubt as he is experiencing some pain in his back.

The manager said this was another good warm up fixture after last weekend's visit of Galatasaray.

"It's something totally different," he said. "We're going to play Liverpool's development squad, their under-21s, at their Academy training ground so it will be interesting.

"It's always nice for the players to go across to the big clubs training grounds to see the facilities and they'll have some useful footballers so it will be a good game.

"We'll make a few changes from Saturday and try and give everybody good game time and give them an opportuning to prove that they should be in the starting line up come August 3 so it's just balancing everything up at the moment."

On the prospect of Taylor playing some part, GT added: "I've had a message that Jon Taylor has got up this morning with severe back pain so we'll see how he is when he joins us at the Liverpool training ground.

"We'll see whether he's fit enough to play, but everyone else is okay."

The manager feels there could also perhaps be long-term benefits from today's game as it gives him the chance to take a look at some of Liverpool's highly rated youngsters.

It's worked in the past that he's seen talented players on the opposing side in these sorts of games and ended up taking them on loan.

"I think there's always that chance," he said. "That's another reason why you get so much out of these sort of games.

"You can compare them with our own young lads. One or two of theirs are obviously in the England under-20 and England under-21s and we can have a good look at what they're like.

"It's always worth it for the contacts you can make there. I think they call it networking.

"You can get in there, you know who the people are, and they can see the way we try and play, the way we get it down and pass it so if you are going to lend any of their players out at any time they know they will be well looked after."